History

Henry King was born in the early 1910's under unknown circumstances. King
was born a mutant, a human being somehow different than the average Homo
Sapiens. An introspective and lonely child, King spent a large amount of
time in the company of books. One day while relaxing a local fishing hole,
young Henry was lost in a particularly vivid daydream about Sir Lancelot
of the Round Table. To Henry's surprise, the Arthurian hero appeared and
spoke to him. Henry soon realized he had the ability to construct realistic
images by projecting his own thoughts. With practice, he improved his skills
and eventually developed broader powers. While he had few friends, King
was acquainted with two other neighborhood kids, Edwin Ackerman and girlfriend
Lucy. Henry had a secret crush on Lucy and when she and Edwin married later
on, King burned with jealousy .

As he grew older, King's ability to control his powers increased. He
improved in both the size and detail of object he could create, the range
at which he could create them and the extent to which others perceived
them. Eventually, King completed college and medical school, obtaining
a degree in psychiatry. Not content to live the life of an ordinary man,
Henry King established a nom du crime for himself, the Brain Wave, and
set about to amass wealth and power. His first act was to generate thought-constructs
to steal enough money for him to engage in research and purchase several
bases. He then determined to set himself up a crime lord (Revealed in All-Star
Comics #15).

In early 1942, Brain Wave contacted several criminals and offered his
services in exchange for loyalty and proceeds from their activities. One
of his earliest contacts was Professor Elba, who developed an "insanity
serum", the effects of which were actually assisted by the Brain Wave's
mental powers. Professor Elba was eventually defeated by the Justice Society
without their discovery of his true backer (All-Star Comics #8, revealed
in All-Star Squadron #19).

Intrigued by the arrival of costumed interference in Elba's plans, the
Brain Wave approached the JSA in his role as psychiatrist Dr. Henry King.
Planting a post-hypnotic suggestion in the minds of the heroes, he lured
them to the former World's Fair perisphere. There he attached the heroes
(minus Green Lantern) and new arrival Wonder
Woman to a mental device and bombarded them with images of wartime
conflict (derived originally from tales in All-Star Comics #11).
Not satisfied with the Justice Society, the Brain Wave baited the All-Star
Squadron by using the lights of the World's Fair's trylon tower to send
an ultimatum in Morse Code. When the heroes arrived, the Brain Wave insisted
they join the JSA in his device or the more familiar heroes would die.
Brain Wave's plans were ultimately thwarted by the arrival of the Green
Lantern. When pulled into the criminal's nightmare scenario, Green Lantern
willed his power ring to destroy what he perceived as the nation of Japan.
The use of the full power of his ring elicited a powerful feedback from
Brain Wave's machine, destroying it. The Brain Wave retreated to fight
another day (All-Star Squadron #19-20).

By 1943, the Brain Wave was again prepared to attack the Justice Society.
His second foray occurred quite by happenstance as the individual members
stumbled across various operations headed by the Brain Wave. King had contacted
several criminals to conduct operations in the home cities of various JSAers.
He also took revenge on Edwin Ackerman, his childhood neighbor who had
married the woman King had been infatuated with as a youth. Starman thwarted
his scheme and actually tracked King down in his office of psychiatry.
Lacking evidence, Starman could only watch the criminal rebuke his ideas
and leave. As each case was solved by the individual JSAers, they converged
on Sharktooth Bay, where King had established an tower base. Meanwhile,
Wonder Woman, believing the JSA in dire straits, organized a rescue team
of herself, Hawkgirl, Peachy Pet Thunder, Inza Cramer, Doris Lee and Dian
Belmont. Disguised as their male counterparts, they assaulted the tower
at Sharktooth Bay but were captured by the Brain Wave's projected images
of the JSA. The JSA arrived presently en force, rescued the heroines and
turned the battle to the Brain Wave, who seemingly plunged to his death
(All-Star Comics #15).

Unbeknownst to the departing heroes, the limb of a tree had snagging
the falling villain, saving Brain Wave's life. Seeking revenge, Brain Wave
invented a shrinking ray and shrank the male JSAers to 8 inches in height.
Taking them leisurely back to his tower at Sharktooth Bay, the Brain Wave
placed his captives on a shelf while he held a meeting with his lieutenants
to plan his next crime wave. Summoning his bird friends, Hawkman liberated
the JSA who, still at 8 inches, set out to thwart the crimes planned at
the Brain Wave's meeting. As was often the case, Johnny Thunder decided
much after the fact that the his Thunderbolt could probably restore the
shrunken heroes, and when summoned, the T-bolt did precisely that. The
crime wave thwarted, the JSA assembled and moved on the tower at Sharktooth
Bay. Prepared for this eventuality, the Brain Wave had mined the road leading
to the tower and planned to detonate them as soon as the JSA arrived. The
aggressive Thunderbolt, however, moved the mined to the beneath the tower
so when King pressed the plunger, it was the tower, not the road which
exploded. Presuming the villain dead, the JSA again departed (All-Star
Comics #17).

Though probably severely injured, the Brain Wave survived. In the intervening
years, he manufactured an identity for himself as Dr. Forest Malone, an
expert in dream psychology. In 1946, he solicited the JSA to volunteer
in a test of his new dream analyzer. The JSA, as was their habit in that
day, agreed and submitted unwittingly to the Brain Wave's device. Instead
of a dream analyzer, the device was a dream inducer which instead of recording
the JSA dreams, slowly drove each of them mad with the exception of Johnny
Thunder. Confronted with his now-dysfunctional team mates and the victorious
Brain Wave, Thunder summoned again his magical Thunderbolt to restore his
comrades and capture the Brain Wave. This time there was no escape and
Henry King got his first taste of jail (All-Star Comics #30).

He didn't remain there long however and in 1947, he joined the newly
formed team of super-villains, the Injustice Society of the World. Along
with the other villains, Brain Wave was assigned a hero to capture or kill
for the group, in King's case, the Green Lantern. Unlike the remaining
villains who captured their target, Brain Wave left Green Lantern for dead
in a ravine, an act which ultimately led to the rescue of the captured
heroes and the villains' defeat. (All-Star #36).

The Brain Wave's activities after the capture of the original Injustice
Society remain unknown. After the HUAC hearings of 1951 drove the JSA out
of the national spotlight, the Brain Wave apparently returned to his identity
as Henry King. At some point, he encountered and seduced Merry Pemberton,
a heroine from the late 1940's code-named Merry, the Girl of 1,000 Gimmicks.
The two wed and at some point in the late 1950's or early 1960's, produced
an heir, Henry King, Jr. Merry Pemberton later died under unrevealed circumstances
when the Brain Wave abandoned his family and returned to a live of crime.
The Brain Wave had no other children that he was ever aware of (revealed
in Infinity Inc. #3, 10).

Over the intervening years, Henry King spent long sentences in high-tech
isolation facilities which served as his prison. Lonely throughout his
life, the intense isolation required to prevent the criminal from using
his telepathy drove him insane and instilled in him an obsession with beauty.
He developed a hatred for his own dwarfen frame and began to project an
image of male perfection over it that he might appear young and attractive
to others. By the mid-1970's, he had amassed enough wealth to build a small
space station as a new base. From there he staged a series of catastrophes
across the globe in a bid for world domination. Ever seeking companionship,
he freed Per Degaton, a former Injustice Society member, from prison to
aid him in his conquests. Their activities captured the eventual attention
of the Justice Society and in a few days time, Brain Wave and Degaton were
again in jail (All-Star Comics #58-60).

King was not imprisoned long however and soon was free to join his Injustice
Society colleagues in an assault on the Justice Society. Teamed with the
Wizard, he confronted new members Power Girl and the Star-Spangled Kid
in Alaska only to be met with a swift defeat (All-Star Comics #66).
Enraged, he was free from prison within months with a new plot to send
each city inhabited by a JSA member into limbo. In the process he captured
Green Lantern and the Flash and did manage to send Keystone City to Limbo
before being intercepted by Power Girl. Freeing herself and her colleagues
from King's holding cells, Power Girl led the capture of Brain Wave once
more (Showcase #99).

Shortly after 1980, the Brain Wave was contacted by the Ultra-Humanite,
another long-time foe of the Injustice Society to become a member of a
new Secret Society of Super-Villains with other Earth-2 and Earth-1 villains.
Each member was assigned to capture a hero in the Ultra-Humanite's plan
and the Brain Wave fulfilled his obligation by capturing Johnny Thunder.
When the Earth-2 chapter of the Society betrayed the Earth-1 Chapter, the
latter villains freed the heroes from their trap in Limbo and all the villains
were then imprisoned in that other-dimensional realm (Justice League
of America #195-197). In an effort to free themselves, The Brain Wave
and the Ultra-Humanite attempted to communicate with the outside world
by combining their considerable powers. When the Ultra-Humanite succeeded
in contacting a previous version of himself in 1942, he arranged for the
escape of his comrades back through time to help him achieve his objectives
in the past. When the 1980's heroes, Infinity Inc., followed the villains
to the 40's, the Brain Wave ambushed and defeated his father, who abandoned
the Humanite's forces and returned to Limbo (All-Star Squadron #26-27,
Annual #2).

Shortly thereafter, the Ultra-Humanite was defeated and returned to
Limbo. In short order, however, he escaped and launched a new attack against
the Justice Society. After capturing several of the more powerful members
and exposing them to the river of Koehaha, the heroes became ruthless megalomaniacs.
To stop the Ultra-Humanite and rescue the elder heroes, a group of second
generation super-heroes of Earth-2 formed a group known as Infinity Inc.
Among it's membership was Henry King Jr., son of the aging criminal who
took the name Brainwave Jr. In the climactic battle in Limbo, the Ultra-Humanite
turned his formidable mental powers against the junior King prompting the
elder to intervene and rescue in his son. In the ensuing telepathic struggle,
the Ultra-Humanite was severely mentally impaired and the Brain Wave was
mortally wounded. As he died, he made a final peace with his son and used
his awesome mutant mind to imbue his son with the bulk of his own mental
powers. With the effort, the greatest individual foe of the Justice Society
expired. (Infinity Inc. #1-10). He was buried in an unknown location.
The powers he passed on made Henry King Jr. more powerful than ever but
also destabilized his sanity. After a brief spell as a criminal himself
(Extreme Justice #16-17), King was incarcerated in a specialized
sanitarium paid for by Alan Scott (Green Lantern/Sentinel: Heart of
Darkness #1). His ultimate fate remains unknown.

Powers and Abilities: Henry King possessed a broad range of advanced
mental powers. Initially, these were primarily limited to the projection
of realistic "thought images" but his powers eventually evolved to telepathy,
telekinesis and the ability to produce bolts of raw mental force. Most
of his powers were passed to his son, Henry King Jr., just prior to his
death.

Weaknesses and Limitations: Physically, Henry King represented
a sub-standard member of the human species. If cornered, he could be easily
overcome by the average human. Psychologically, the Brain Wave was driven
primarily by his extreme loneliness, a condition exacerbated by years of
solitary confinement in federal penitentiaries.